Oh My @$#%^&%#, I Just Deleted My Entire Blog!!!

I wanted to cry when I realized that I had just deleted my entire blog with two clicks of the mouse and yes, it was that easy and that fast and everything was gone including the databases. I had just deleted the blog I was using at the moment – www.RiceInternetMarketing.com.

I was trying to delete the blog off of a different domain and accidentally brought up the wrong domain. As it was late at night and I was tired I was not paying to close attention to just what was going on and I deleted everything off of the wrong domain.

This should not have been such a big deal if I had backed up my blog.

I am a fanatic about backing things up. I back up my computer every night on to a two terabyte hard drive. I also sync all of my documents on to that same hard drive. That way I have the back up as well as a copy of everything on my harddrive. I sync and back up my websites on a regular basis.

So when I deleted the entire blog I thought “oh ya I have a back up”. The only problem was the backup was on the server where I have just deleted everything. The backup program that I used backed the data up to a location within the blog. Then I needed to transfer the backup to another location which I had not done yet as I really did not intend to do anything to that blog.

This did solve one of my dilemmas. I was trying to decide if I really wanted to use RiceInternetMarketing.com or DeeAnnRice.com. This pretty much decided the issue as when I lost everything off of RiceInternetMarketing.com and had to start over it made the decision easy to decide to use DeeAnnRice.com.

So how do you back up a blog or website? Well there are quite a few different ways to do it. There are several plugins out there that backup for you. The problems I have found with some of the plugins is that they sometimes work and sometimes they don’t. I have used plugins that have successfully backed up my website several times and then one I will get a corrupt backup. I always try to back up a couple of different ways.

How To Back Up A Blog

First off there are two parts to your blog. The first part is the databases where all of your data is kept and the second part is the wordpress part or the stuff you see on a FTP program. Some of these solutions back up both parts and others only backup one or the other. In order to have a complete backup you have to backup both your databases and the wordpress part.

Plugins

This is a plugin that you have to buy and costs $45 for two web sites and goes up from there for additional websites. I love this plugin as it is really easy to use. It backs up the databases as well as the wordpress part of the blog. So when backed up you have a complete copy of your blog. Backup Buddy makes either restoring a blog or migrating a blog to a new domain easy. The thing you have to remember about this plugin is that it saves everything back onto your blog. Then you have to transfer it to another location which is also easy and is done from within the plugin or with an FTP program. This is what I had used to back up my website and had not moved the backup.

This is a free plugin that I have been using recently. It backs up the databases. The really nice thing about this plugin is that you can set it up to send you an email with a backup of the databases at whatever frequency you choose. I have it set up to send me a database backup daily. This way I have all of my content in the event that something in advertently happens to my blog. I was not using this plugin at the time I erased my blog. I had not put this plugin on yet.

This is another free plugin I have used in the past. It also lets you schedule a back up of your blog database and have it emailed to you at whatever interval you choose. Again this only backs up the databases and not the wordpress part of your blog but at least you retain all of the content for your blog.

Synchronizing programs

I love this program also. I use this almost every day to back up my computer and my websites. This program cost $29.95 but you can try it before you buy it. You can pick what you want to sync and where you want to sync. It will sync from your computer to online, online to your computer or between computers or external hard drives. I sync my blogs from the ftp to my external hard drive. That way my blog is backed up. This only backs up the wordpress part of the blog.

This is a free sync program. I have never used this so do not really know how it works but do know they give you 5GB of free storage online when you download and install this program.

Manual Backups

Sometimes I just prefer to just do it manually as then at least I know it is done.

I thought the best way to show how to manually backup was to do it on a video. So please watch the following video to learn how to manually back up your data base and wordpress part of your blog.

The one thing I learned out of this whole situation was that I need to back up my blog right away and not wait. I also would suggest that you use a couple of different forms of backup as sometimes the backups fail.

I now have this blog backed up and will be online again. I will be visiting blogs again and commenting. I would love comments on my blog.

Share

If you find this post interesting or useful could you please share it with your friends. Thank you.

DEEANN!!! First rule of thumb when working on websites (other than backup every day) is DO NOT WORK ON YOUR SERVER WHEN YOU ARE TIRED! And yes – I learned that lesson the hard way too, LOL…I’m surprised you didn’t remember me telling you about doing something silly like that myself!

Thanks for coming by and commenting. You probably did tell me stories of losing websites but it is a whole lot more graphic when it actually happens. I now backup my computer everyday and backup my blog everyday. I guess I just have to learn the hard way but I do not plan on getting caught without a backup again.

Hey Dee Ann,
Losing a blog on the internet is one of those times I would be tempted to use some pretty colorful language without the symbols. It’s that frustrating. Good post. I get a email with my backed up files attached, but dread the day I might actually have to use the backup software. I just hope it all works satisfactorily and I’m able to do what’s required. The backup software was free and had several recommendations (blogging for dummies was one. So we will see.
Riley

At least having the backup you will have the possibility of restoring your blog but I know the fear of the software now working. That is why I have been doing backups multiple ways because I have also had the experience of backups not working to restore. At least I had not deleted the blog those times though.

Hi Dee Ann, as said at the top, you really shouldn’t work on techie stuff when you are tired, especially if it is something that is irreversible! I bet that was a shock to the system! Nice to see video on your posts, great addition.

I had the thought at the time that “I probably should not be doing this now” but I was just going to do this one thing and then go to bed. Not the thing to do and I do know better. I usually avoid anything that takes thinking when I am tired but, oh well! I will not do that again. I really do have my blog backed up now.

Thank you for stopping by my new blog (I would like to say “and improved” as it just seems to have a good ring to it, but don’t think that is true). At least I have a blog up and running. I am thankful for that.

I don’t trust the plugins so that is why I showed how to manually backup the blogs. I know that works. I am actually doing a plugin and the manual backup. I am not going to lose the whole thing again.

Oh my goodness – I am so sorry that happened! I use a back up program for my blog, actually one of the plug-ins you suggested.

As far as backing up my computer, I have never gotten in the habit of doing that, I just save all my important files on flash drives – before them it was discs and before that was zip drives and floppies, both of which are now outdated.

I did once subscribe to an online back up service but when my PC crashed it didn’t recover the things I wanted it to, so felt it was a complete waste.

Anyway, I know how things can happen when it is late and you are tired. I guess you can look at it this way – you have a REASON to restart and restarting is not always a bad thing, because you can improve on what you learned in the past.

So, here’s to a brand new blog that is going to be much better than your last, which unfortunately, I didn’t get to see.

It was a little shocking when I deleted the blog, but probably even more shocking for Sally, my friend I called at about 1am her time to tell what I had just done. I think she was half asleep when she kept saying “I can’t believe you did that” over and over again. But I just need to learn from it. Nothing is ever a total loss if you learn something.

I managed to crash my computer one time and did not have it backed up. I ended up taking it to Best Buy and paying them to take all of the data off of my hard drive. That was a miserable experience. They had my computer for 3 or 4 days and it cost me about $150 dollars. So now I back up the computer every night or at least most nights.

You would of thought I would of learned my lesson on that one and applied it to my blog.

IT’S NOT JUST ME!!!! You sound far more techno-orientated than me and yet, tired and late at night, you managed to do what I did IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!!! Thanks so much for sharing your story with us and for providing technical info on how to back up and synchronize data. Have bookmarked your site for further useful info on how not to delete my online life…. Thanks, Sally

I am glad I can be of help to you when it comes to deleting items online. At least I can claim to be good at something that is beneficial to someone. lol

Thanks for being there for me the night I deleted the blog and I called you at about 1am, even if you did just keep saying “I can’t believe you did that” after you asked what the emergency was as if you though someone must of died and I had to tell you it was only my blog that died a quick death. I think I would of cried if I had not been able to tell someone.

Thank you for all of the positive input. I learned a lot doing it the first time and had a lot better idea of what I wanted the second time.

The real ironic thing is the reason I actually was deleting everything off this domain was to revamp my blog as I did not like it and thought it needed improving. I had not intended to get rid of the content however. I was going to transfer it over. But this worked and I am ready to go again with new energy that I did not have before.

My heart goes out to you Dee Ann. Thankfully, I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t even think to work on my sites cleaning stuff up when I’m tired like that. I save that for a weekend when I back up my computer files, clean off my server, that sort of stuff. But I’m so happy that you’ve gotten this one back up and online now.

Thanks for sharing with us how to properly back everything up. I know there are a lot of people who continue to think about it but never put it into play. Never thinking that will happen to them. Never say never, right!

Ouch!
I don’t really know what I’d od if this happens. You put so much time and effort into your baby, then it disappears. I had a few hiccups myself recently, butnothing on this scale.
I use Wordpress database Backup, a free plugin which sends the backup to your email every day.
I hope I don’t ever have to try to use it, I’m not at all techie.

Working on your server? Whoosh! Went straight over my head. (But then I am quite short).

I was pretty devastated when it happened to me. It is taking some time but I am making a come back.

I hope you don’t ever have to use your backup either.

Watch out though because I think that plugin only backs up the databases. You need to backup the rest of your blog also. You can to into Filezilla and download the entire blog onto your computer or you can do it how I showed in the video.

At least you will have the databases which is where all of your content is. I am using that same plugin and get a backup every day also.

Technically, that’s not funny. But at the same time LOL. Sometimes it’s hard to make a decision on things like that, and then something makes the decision for you. I have been there long ago. NOW, I am way to advanced to allow that to happen to me luckily. Good luck eh.

It is great that you are so advanced that you can make sure you do not allow this to happen to you.

I don’t know if I will ever get to where I am past making mistakes no matter how advanced I get. Things that I have been doing for years and know how to do very well, I still make mistakes at. Think that is called being human.

Hi there. Thanks for sharing your horrible experience, and how to prevent it from happening to anyone else.
Now after knowing how to back up all my data, I’m relaxed and not really afraid if it happened. Well, hopefully not, because if it’s happened, I think I’d still go crazy despite of having the backup.

That’s a relief. Good thing that you always make back-ups to your blog. If that thing happens to me, I will go crazy because I am not use to backing-up my work. And thanks for providing the information. I will save your post.

Breathtaking posting for me, especially as I am one of those people that had neglected to save backups of any of my data until one day my computer died a natural death. Since then I learnt a lesson, the backups are not there just for fun, I use them…. Thanks for this great post.

Protecting a blog by backing up files is definitely the way to go. Not because you are expecting to experience problem in the future but just being safe. As an example, a friend of mine, who’s new in owning a site, didn’t bother to backup his file. Though he only have few post in his blog, the effort he made for the blog format and the theme suddenly turned to nothing. It’s a sad thing that it happened but at least he learned his lesson.Mark recently posted…If you want to get ripped and have a killer body, then the money for P90X is totally worth it

I am fastidious about backing up the database via the ‘WordPress Database Backup’ plugin which I have set to be sent via email every 24 hours so that at least is comforting.

However, after reading your post I now realise that I must backup ‘all’ my Wordpress files more often, last time about 6 weeks ago. So whilst I would not lose everything it would be a big headache if there was a major problem. So as soon as this comment is finished I bet you can guess what my next job is, yes that’s right I am off to BACKUP all my files!!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have tweeted this post and video.

Hi devistated for you for deleting your blog. I am currently in the process of setting up my first niche site. Not being an expert it is taking me a lot of hours. I haven’t backed anything up yet and would be crack up if I lost all my work . So the next thing I am going to do now is get it backed up.

aGH! That hurts! I might be pulling my hair if that happened to me. That happened to a friend of mine, too. She accidentally deleted her blog and she has no back-up. She advised me to not work late so I won’t be working without my mind on it. She also told me to have a backup once in a while.

I am so happy I found your blog! I just deleted my blog and I am in the process of trying to get it restored (if possible). I used a plugin to back it up, but now have to figure out how to get that file to work. Wish me luck!